A petrol bomb has been hurled at the house of a security guard working at a controversial fracking site in Northern Ireland. The attack occurred on Sunday morning in the outskirts of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

The home of a Samdec
Security worker was reportedly targeted, as a petrol bomb was
thrown from a passing vehicle. No one was injured in the
incident. Samdec Security have been hired by Tamboran Resources
to guard the controversial site where the energy firm plans to
instigate fracking.

Donal O’Cofaigh, a spokesman for a Fermanagh-based anti-fracking
campaign, condemned the
attack emphasizing,“Belcoo Frack Free’s members are
committed to approaching the dangers of fracking in a peaceful
and dignified manner”.

Central to the founding
of a number of anti-fracking groups in Northern and Southern
Ireland,Donal
has been instrumental in Ireland’s anti-fracking movement at
large.

Public health
concerns

Alex Baird, a local Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) councillor,
expressed deep concern about the prospect of fracking in the
local lakeland district. Such a practice could potentially cause
“unstable ground structure” and polluted “land and
waterways” leading to acute “public health"
concerns, he warned.

But Baird denounced the attack on the security guard’s home,
insisting he would "not be
party" to "any campaign that breaks the law, has sectarian
overtones and is violent".

“We want to empower people from both sides of the community
to take action against fracking.We welcome the fact
that the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has taken a position against
fracking. It’s a campaign that unites people and has the power to
bring both sides of the community together,” he said on
Monday.

Founded several weeks ago, Belcoo Frack Free
ispart of a
larger network of groups focused on campaigning against fracking
in Northern Ireland. The campaign’s core objectives reportedly
include“halting
exploratory works with regard to shale gas development, helping
to organize cross-community and cross-border demonstrations, and
informing the wider public about the dangers of fracking."

A spokesperson for
Tamboran Resources said the petrol bombing of its employee’s home
was"an
orchestrated and abhorrent attack on a local family in the middle
of the night."

"Tamboran fully respects
the right to peaceful protest. We welcome calls from those who
have called for any protests to be peaceful. However, we cannot
ignore such attacks,”the spokesperson added.

But counter to these claims, the energy firm recently took out an
injunction, which prevents peaceful demonstrators from entering
the quarry site at Belcoo. The injunction stipulates the
obstruction of Tamboran staff member's work at the quarry is
illegal.

Nevertheless, an anti-fracking camp located near the site
reportedly operates under an array of clearly expressed
non-violent principles. According to the Belcoo Frack Free
campaign, protesters based there must adhere to these strict
principles at all times. In response to Tamboran's plans to
explore for shale gas in Belcoo, a group of local demonstrators
have also staged an ongoing peaceful vigil there.

There are currently
plans to construct “2,800 frack wells in an area of
outstanding natural beauty”, he warns. This development will
allegedly infiltrate the cross-border counties of Fermanagh and
Leitrim, posing a considerable risk to Ireland's Lough Allen
basin.

Tamboran's target zone
is a “pristine and unique environment”, which
encompasses a UN world heritage site known as the Marble Arch
Caves Geopark,O’Caofaigh cautions.

Fracking developments in
this region could total up to 8,400 wells, according to the
Fermanagh-based campaigner. Associated environmental and economic
risks have stoked the fears of local citizens, activists,
politicians and environmentalists alike.

Hundreds of concerned
citizens recently attended a public meeting to discuss the risks
associated with fracking in County Fermanagh. The attendees
included an array of political figures from Sinn Féin, the SDLP
and the Green Party.

Tom White, a Belcoo resident who was central to organizing the
meeting, emphasized Tamboran’s plans to frack in Belcoo harboured
serious implications for both Northern and Southern Ireland.

"It's not a small little project on a small borehole being
bored somewhere in a quarry in Belcoo. This affects the whole
island and it is very important that people all over the island
take note of this," he said.

A growing
movement

Public opinion on the ground in Fermanagh is allegedly strongly
opposed to Tamboran's plans to frack in the region. Opposition to
the energy firm’s proposals to construct thousand’s of wells in
this area is “almost unanimous”, according to O'Cofaigh.

Members of communities
throughout the district feel“they've been
abandoned”,
O'Cofaigh said on Monday. There’s been“no public
consultation”, and
local people are fearful of the potential repercussions of
fracking, he added.

Tanya Jones, a
representative of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone Green Party who
also has been an active anti-fracking campaigner in the region,
sharply criticized Sunday's petrol bomb attack, emphasizing it
was "cowardly, stupid and potentially
damaging to the frack-free movement".

"Quite possibly it was intended to be
so",she
said.

"There are
a lot of people and organizations who would benefit from the
discrediting of the massive public outcry against fracking in
Fermanagh. There is also, very sadly, a generation in Northern
Ireland brought up on tales of paramilitary heroes, young men who
have imbued a nostalgia for violence, and for whom any target
would be sufficient for their blooding.My personal view is that one or
other of these phenomena explains whatever happened in
Letterbreen early on Sunday morning", Ms Jones
continued.

"I am as certain as
I can possibly be that none of the people I have worked with over
nearly three years of frack-free campaigning would ever
contemplate such an action - and that neither would the gentle
farmers I met in Belcoo on Friday evening and at yesterday’s
tractor run into Enniskillen", she concluded.

A post shared on social
media on Sunday documenting local farmers protesting Tamboran's
plans to frack in the locale has generated a world-wide response.
Messages of support have been sent to Fermanagh-based
anti-fracking campaigners from from America, Australia, Britain
and elsewhere.

On Monday night,
Fermanagh District Council (FDC) passeda motion, which outrightly declared
itsopposition to
fracking, according to myriadlocal
campaigners.There
was also reportedly a subsequent action in which the council
approved legal aid for the Belcoo Fracking Campaign.
Whether Stormont
will respond to the demands of the council and local campaign
group, however, remains to be seen.

Local campaigners'
greatest concerns associated with fracking in the region relate
to widespread pollution of ground water and air quality, as well
as risks posed to Northern and Southern Ireland's farming and
agricultural sectors by a potential "benzene leak".